Blandford Monitor Farm harvest update

“We had a really good start in early July. Winter barley and oilseed rape were nice and dry. No drying charges. Now we’ve gone on into later July/early August it’s been a real challenge. I think we’ve had nearly four inches of rain since that period.

“Here we are in some spring barley. Quite a few ears on the ground, moisture about 16 per cent and it’s become quite a challenge. But the sun’s shining at the moment so we’ve just got to make the most of it.

“Prices are still encouraging at the moment. We can see concerns on our malting quality but so far what we’ve done is ok. We’re about to move on to our wheat, all of which is feed wheat or low-grade milling. Let’s just hope the specific weights haven’t deteriorated too much and that we can crack on with our wheat harvest.”